The Age of Homespun by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

But its importance to the rhetoric of the age of homespun had as much or more to do with the fact that 'images of industrious, self-sacrificing and patriotic women domesticated and softened the often harsh realities of political conflict, economic uncertainty, and war' (p. Ulrich concludes that home production of textiles was indeed central to the early nineteenth-century New England economy. Attending closely to physical evidence of how items such as an Indian basket, an embroidered rose blanket, and a linen tablecloth were made and used, as well as to a broad array of textual materials-everything from probate inventories to diaries to the idiosyncratic, handwritten note that accompanied the gift of an object to a historical society-this book wonderfully complicates our understanding of the cultural contexts that shaped the production and consumption of textiles and of history in late-eighteenth and early nineteenth-century New England. With an interest in both cloth making and history making at the heart of her inquiry, the author organizes each of the book's eleven chapters around one or two textiles or textile-related objects.ĭrawing on object-centered anthropological models for thinking about the meaning of things, as well as text-based methods honed by historians (including the texts of folktales documented by folklorists), Ulrich artfully teases out the multiple stories that converge in the objects she has chosen to illuminate-stories that the age of homespun mythos (as one of many competing cultural narratives) alternately embodied, misrepresented, and repressed. Taking Bushnell's speech as her point of departure, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich sets out to understand the attraction that the mythos of an age of homespun held for nineteenth-century Americans and how that notion inspired and informed their efforts to record and preserve New England history. Unlike his esteemed colleagues, who recounted long lists of distinguished civic fathers associated with particular public events, Bushnell sang the praises of the anonymous kings and queens of the 'age of homespun'-a time when America's unique republican character was shaped in the crucible of preindustrial, self-sufficient households inhabited by virtuous, thrifty, hard-working, and neighborly men and women. Horace Bushnell of Hartford, Connecticut, delivered a resounding speech as part of Litchfield County's centennial celebration. The Age of Homespun: Objects and Stories in the Creation of an American Myth.

The Age of Homespun by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich